Wilson Taxidermy In Monterey,tn

Interests:bowhunting, muzzleloading, riding atvs, fishing, going to church, and my family and friends!

Posted 08 April 2008 - 10:03 PM

hello all, you guys that have hunted the wilderness lodge and had wilsons tax. do your mounts what was the turn around time, my hog has been there a year and a half almost?? my wife is not in a hurry but i am

Lead times are way out on most taxidermists that use a tanning service to treat the capes prior to assembling the mount. There are far more taxidermists in this country than there are tanning facilities. Most all the tanning facilities are choked up pretty severely last I heard. Grady Wilson may not even have your cape back yet, Bill. Call Grady. He'll give you a straight answer. Wilson's does seriously decent work that lasts. I have two mounts from them I am very happy with. They do use wet tanned capes on their mounts and that is without a doubt the best way to go. A truly tanned hide has a practically unlimited lifespan.

A quick turn around Taxidermist is almost guaranteed to being doing a "Dry Preservative" mount. You get your stuff back much quicker but the life of the mount is SEVERELY limited. Dry preservative mounts look good for only a couple years. The dry preservative treatment is however not a true tanning process. Eventually the hide actually starts to rot and decay. There is no saving the capes on "Dry Preservative" mounts. I've seen deer mounts actually turn green that were done this way. Don't try to save money and time going this route, you will surely end up regretting it. Pigs have an incredible amount of fat on their hides. This fat accelerates the rotting process. Dry preservatives can fail in a very short time unless the cape is fleshed out perfectly.

18 months to 2 yrs to get mounts back nowadays isn't outrageous from a reputable taxidermist using tanned capes. Just look at it as more time to save for the work.

Like I said, call Grady. He will give you the straight scoop. Be patient. It will be worth it. I understand trophy stress. Honestly, I've been burned by slob taxidermists in the past. So I'm pretty sensitive to that. Lost trophies and deposits really suck! Grady has too big a business to risk with that shenanigans. At one point we had no idea where my Africa stuff was. That was extremely stressful, to say the least. It worked out. It was a nail biter for a while though.